Thurston boundary of Teichm\"uller spaces and the commensurability modular group

Abstract

If $p : Y \to X$ is an unramified covering map between two compact oriented surfaces of genus at least two, then it is proved that the embedding map, corresponding to $p$, from the Teichm\"uller space ${\cal T}(X)$, for $X$, to ${\cal T}(Y)$ actually extends to an embedding between the Thurston compactification of the two Teichm\"uller spaces. Using this result, an inductive limit of Thurston compactified Teichm\"uller spaces has been constructed, where the index for the inductive limit runs over all possible finite unramified coverings of a fixed compact oriented surface of genus at least two. This inductive limit contains the inductive limit of Teichm\"uller spaces, constructed in \cite{BNS}, as a subset. The universal commensurability modular group, which was constructed in \cite{BNS}, has a natural action on the inductive limit of Teichm\"uller spaces. It is proved here that this action of the universal commensurability modular group extends continuously to the inductive limit of Thurston compactified Teichm\"uller spaces.